Privacy Attitudes and Privacy Behavior

Abstract

Surveys and experiments have uncovered a dichotomy between stated attitudes and actual behavior of individuals facing decisions affecting their privacy and their personal information security. Surveys report that most individuals are concerned about the security of their personal information and are willing to act to protect it. Experiments reveal that very few individuals actually take any action to protect their personal information, even when doing so involves limited costs. In this paper we analyze the causes of this dichotomy. We discuss which economic considerations are likely to affect individual choice and we advance hypotheses about why individuals’ information security attitudes seem inconsistent with their behavior.